“Kathleen Ruff is the true hero of this whole saga,” said Dr. Fernand Turcotte, one of Ruff’s longtime collaborators on the asbestos file and a professor emeritus of public health and preventive medicine at the Université Laval.

“She is generous, principled, committed and just unstoppable,” said Steven Staples, vice president of the Ottawa-based foreign and defence policy think tank, the Rideau Institute.